Childhood lead exposure reduces one’s IQ, and also causes one to be more impulsive and aggressive.
I always assumed that the impulsiveness was due, basically, to your executive function machinery working less well. So you have less self control.
But maybe the reason for the IQ-impulsiveness connection, is that if you have a lower IQ, all of your subagents/ subprocesses are less smart. Because they’re worse at planning and modeling the world, the only way they know how to get their needs met are very direct, very simple, action-plans/ strategies. It’s not so much that you’re better at controlling your anger, as the part of you that would be angry is less so, because it has other ways of getting its needs met.
A slightly different spin on this model: it’s not about the types of strategies people generate, but the number. If you think about something and only come up with one strategy, you’ll do it without hesitation; if you generate three strategies, you’ll pause to think about which is the right one. So people who can’t come up with as many strategies are impulsive.
[Real short post. Random. Complete speculation.]
Childhood lead exposure reduces one’s IQ, and also causes one to be more impulsive and aggressive.
I always assumed that the impulsiveness was due, basically, to your executive function machinery working less well. So you have less self control.
But maybe the reason for the IQ-impulsiveness connection, is that if you have a lower IQ, all of your subagents/ subprocesses are less smart. Because they’re worse at planning and modeling the world, the only way they know how to get their needs met are very direct, very simple, action-plans/ strategies. It’s not so much that you’re better at controlling your anger, as the part of you that would be angry is less so, because it has other ways of getting its needs met.
A slightly different spin on this model: it’s not about the types of strategies people generate, but the number. If you think about something and only come up with one strategy, you’ll do it without hesitation; if you generate three strategies, you’ll pause to think about which is the right one. So people who can’t come up with as many strategies are impulsive.
This seems that it might be testable. If you force impulsive folk to wait and think, do they generate more ideas for how to proceed?
This reminded me of the argument that superintelligent agents will be very good at coordinating and just divvy of the multiverse and be done with it.
It would be interesting to do an experimental study of how the intelligence profile of a population influences the level of cooperation between them.
I think that’s what the book referenced here, is about.